There's not a thought in my head; the cupboard is bare. The harder I try and think about what to write tonight the tighter and more constrained I feel. I couldn't write a post for this blog tonight if my life depended on it. I can think of nothing that interests me, nor is likely to interest you. Do I have writer's block...?
According to
Wikipedia's article on writer's block, it is a condition
In which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked" writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers.
Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway all suffered from writer's block. Andrew Motion revealed how it had struck in the middle of his laureateship, and how he was not prepared for the isolation of the job. Philip Lrkin suffered intermittently with it, saying, "I haven't given poetry up; poetry has given me up." Isaac Asimov, it is said, "had writer's block once. It was the worst ten minutes of his life."
American poet, William Stafford, is attributed with saying: "There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough." He wasn't advocating writing any old rubbish but that writer's often take themselves too seriously and are too self critical. It's a form of self censorship; nothing is considered quite up to the mark and therefore, quite soon, the writer has stymied themselves into silence. Checkmate.
There is much advice on how to climb out of that dried up inkwell you've fallen into, such as to just start writing anything. Sure, much will be drivel but the physical act of writing will start the literary juices flowing. Another remedy is to do something physical like going to the gym or going for a run or a swim. Agatha Christie swore by her own cure of eating apples in the bath. None has been proven to work.
Of course not all writers suffer chronically with it, although, I suspect all writers experience the occasional bout from time to time. Except, that is, Will Self, if he's to be believed, "I have never experienced writer's block. Writing is a muscular action and, like any other, all you need to do is exercise the muscles. I don't even think of it as writing – it's typing."
There are a collection of apartments in Cardiff Bay in which the BBC houses some of its writers when they are working on BBC Wales productions.
Russel T Davies (Queer As Folk, Dr Who and Torchwood) lived there for a few years. Each time I pass it on my run I smile when I remember that it became known at this time as
Writer's Block.
| Today's run at 17:49 |
| Distance | 4.02 km | Time | 22:39 |
| Pace | 5:39 min/km | Cadence | 80 spm |
| Comments: Very windy. Raining. Mild backache. |
The British seem to favour its omission when it comes to company names. Waterstones recently dropped the apostrophe from its name amidst cries of despair from grammatical diehards. Perhaps it's an attempt to haul ourselves out of the 19th Century and compete with American commercialism; perhaps we think that it looks too fussy or that it lacks dynamism. Undoubtedly the internet has played its part - what do you do with an apostrophy in a URL?
